Ages & Stages

Two years ago I was expecting my fourth baby, another sweet girl. The 41 weeks and 3 days I was pregnant with her were not what I planned for. After suffering for 22 weeks with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, then preterm labor symptoms, heart issues that lead to a diagnosis of pregnancy induced Supra Ventricular Tachycardia (SVT), I was left waiting on a baby who decided to push the limits of the homebirth laws by waiting until close to 42 weeks to make her arrival. In the early morning of August 14, 2013, Clementine was born about 5 minutes after my midwife arrived at our home. It was an incredibly quick labor and delivery; nothing short of a whirlwind. I put baby...

Every time I have a baby, I am asked questions that make me scratch my head. But with the birth of my latest baby, I have been asked questions that just down right confuse me. I get that people don’t understand how it sounds, but really people, listen to yourself and see how crazy the question is! Here is a list of my favorite ridiculous questions. “Is she a good baby?” Well, that depends… What is a GOOD baby? What is a BAD baby? Are you asking if she sits peacefully and never cries? Does she nurse well? What? What IS a good baby? Being asked this question after my first two, I never thought anything of it. They were “good”...

Ah, cold and flu season. Boo you. The last week has been rough, and it’s been one of those times when reality hits and I think, Oh, wow, I’m responsible for another person, and he needs me whether I’m feeling 100% or not. It started when my baby got sick last weekend. We got to pay a Saturday morning visit to the pediatrician (every mom’s favorite thing to do), where my son was diagnosed with pink eye and a cold. Unfortunately, as we know, there’s not much you can do for a cold except ride it out, but the doctor did prescribe some lovely eye drops for the pinkeye. If you haven’t ever tried to put eye drops in the eyes...

Ok mammas, we are talking baby food!  With this post, I want to take you through the ins and outs of my baby food adventures.  The time spent, lessons learned, and the reward at the end of the day. First, a little back story....When I was pregnant with Kade, there were two things I had high hopes for: breastfeeding and making my own baby food.  I wanted to experience the feeling of being able to give my newborn bundle of joy his nutrition, help save a few dollars in our seemingly maxed out budget, and prove to myself that I could actually do it. A month into Kade's little life, lots of trips to the lactation consultant, and a stay in the hospital...

So, my baby is finally crawling! I say "finally" because he took his time, waiting until he was close to 10 months old. We did everything we could think of to encourage him, but as I've written about before, we just had to wait until he was ready. And he was definitely ready. He went from being pretty much stationary, not even scooting, to full-on, on-all-fours crawling, in about 3 days. And now I'm wondering what I was so excited about. Moms know that once your baby starts crawling, it's a whole new world. Gone are the days when you could leave your baby sitting on the floor with some toys for a couple of minutes while you went and...